University Forced to Pay Up After Silencing Christian Students, Violating Free Speech
The University of Idaho paid $90,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by three Christian students and a faculty adviser who said the university violated their right to free speech, Alliance Defending Freedom announced in a news release on Wednesday.
The lawsuit was filed after the school issued no-contact orders prohibiting Peter Perlot, Mark Miller and Ryan Alexander, all members of the Christian Legal Society, and the group’s faculty adviser, professor Richard Seamon, from interacting with a law student who disagreed with a CLS requirement that all members define marriage as between a man and a woman, according to the lawsuit’s text.
The university rescinded the no-contact orders in a settlement in favor of the legal society, ADF said in the release.
“Universities cannot punish students and professors simply for peacefully expressing their viewpoints on campus, and we are grateful the court recognized that,” Mathew Hoffmann, legal counsel at ADF, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The ‘no-contact orders’ issued by the University of Idaho are just the latest attempts to silence speech on campus,” he said. “But, as the court found, these orders violated the First Amendment. The court’s decision and this settlement have vindicated our clients’ freedom to engage in the campus marketplace of ideas.”
VICTORY: ADF has reached a settlement with Univ. of ID officials who issued no-contact orders against 3 Christian students and a professor. With the no-contact orders permanently rescinded, they are free to speak consistently with their religious beliefs. https://t.co/mD69Ojs0z0
— Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal) December 7, 2022
ADF filed Perlot v. Green in April and said the university’s issuance of the no-contact order violated the group members’ right to speak according to their religion.
“Defendants’ no-contact orders have … chilled Plaintiffs from engaging in religious expression with other students at the Law School or the rest of the university,” the lawsuit read. “Defendants have thus censored Plaintiffs based on Plaintiffs’ religious views and on the content of their speech.”
The issue began after the law student spoke with Miller about the membership requirement and Miller explained that it exists to remain consistent with the Bible’s view of marriage and sexuality. Perlot then wrote a note to the law student offering to discuss the topic further, according to the release.
“A few days later, the law student and several others publicly denounced CLS’s religious beliefs at a panel with the American Bar Association,” the ADF release said. “Alexander attended that meeting and explained his perception that the greatest amount of discrimination on campus was discrimination against CLS and its religious beliefs.
“When university officials issued the no-contact orders against the students three days later, they did not give the Christian students an opportunity to review the allegations against them or defend themselves.”
The lawsuit named as defendants University of Idaho President C. Scott Green, Dean of Students Brian Eckles and two officials in the school’s Office of Civil Rights and Investigations, Erin Agidius and Lindsay Ewan.
“If we are to repair the current culture of political polarization, conversations among persons with differing viewpoints are essential,” Christian Legal Society attorney Laura Nammo said in the news release.
“University officials’ censorship of such conversations needlessly exacerbates polarization and harms all students’ ability to learn from one another,” Nammo said.
CLS, Seamon and the University of Idaho did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. The CLS chapter and students could not be contacted.
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